It used to be so easy to kill a vampire. All you needed was a wooden stake and a little personal fortitude -- even Abbott and Costello knew the drill.

Now, in this post-"Buffy", post-Lestat age, things have become so much more complicated. That complexity only deepens with "Day Watch," Russian director Timur Bekmambetov's dazzling -- and, at times, dizzying -- follow-up to 2004's supernatural thriller "Night Watch."

Visually, the film mixes a gritty reality with eye-popping horror-fantasy, and to stunning effect, from the action sequences down to the brilliantly used subtitles. It all combines to create the feel of a comic book come to life. But the supernatural powers that underwrite all those fantastical, otherwordly action sequences also conspire to short-circuit the film -- particularly in the second half -- by adding a level of incomprehensibility, as if the screenwriters decided to forsake good storytelling simply to create a certain vibe.

Based on the novel by Sergei Lukyanenko and Vladimir Vasiliev, "Day Watch" is part of a trilogy -- the next chapter, "Dusk Watch," is in production -- that follows the supernatural struggle between good and evil, in the form of a legion of witches, warlocks and vampires separated into opposing camps and known as Light Others and Dark Others.

With a fragile peace nearing collapse, each side has gained possession of a so-called Great Other, a situation that threatens to escalate matters if Light Other Anton Gorodetsky (Konstantin Khabensky) can't find the magical Chalk of Fate.

It's trippy stuff, but the filmmakers make it mostly work by not taking themselves too seriously. There's a good amount of levity amid all the whizbangery, such as the "Freaky Friday"-flavored scene in which Anton switches bodies with colleague Olga so he can avoid being caught by the Dark Others. (Never mind that it leads to a shower scene that is about as sensual as an Irish Spring commercial.)

Early on, the screenwriters do a good job of explaining what happened in the first installment of the cycle, but things go quickly downhill as they repeatedly resort to taking the easy way out when written into a corner. If a character gets into a jam, he or she simply uses some previously undisclosed power to get out of it.

As the plot proceeds, layer after layer of unexplainability is piled on until it all devolves into a nonsensical mishmash of mystifying mythology. The final showdown is magnificent in its scale and grand in its technical wizardry, but largely incomprehensible.

There's a certain level of suspension of disbelief that has to be employed to enjoy this type of horror-fantasy, but that shouldn't extend to suspension of appreciation for good storytelling.

DAY WATCH
2 1/2 stars

Plot: The forces of Light and Dark do battle in the streets of modern-day Moscow with nothing less than the fate of the world at stake. In Russian with subtitles.

What works: The visuals are dazzling, from the action sequences to the subtitles, and the filmmakers create an engaging comic-book vibe.

What doesn't: The plot uses the characters' supernatural abilities as a crutch, and the story devolves into a nonsensical mishmash.